Build Your List, Build Your Business

Email Marketing – Basic & Advanced Strategies

I. What is Email Marketing?

One of the best ways to grow your business, launch a product or service, or gain new supporters is through an email list.

Though there are many platforms vying for your audiences’ attention, as I said in the last newsletter – email is still the central hub of a person’s digital world for decision-making. There is a phrase that goes, “The money is in the list.” I would say that this is a bit narrow-minded, as if all that’s in a list is potential for sales. At the same time, I agree that your connection to your audience through your list can fuel your business.

The power of a well-engaged email list is not in the numbers, but in how targeted your subscribers are. I know of people who have successfully launched a product to a list of less than 50 people. The key is to have a targeted, engaged audience – one that wants the solution being offered.

What this means for you is:First, know that you should build a list if you don’t have one (if you do, skip down to section 3).

Second, assuming you know who your best/target customers are, start planning how you can build an email list/audience of those people.

II. How to Build a List

You have to start somewhere, so if you have friends and business colleagues/connections who are willing, start by writing newsletters for them. Being accountable to a group of people you’ve promised to deliver to is a very effective way to get started and keep going.

Research the topics that are important to your target audience (Quora.com is a good place to go to find out what questions are being asked / what have the most interest behind them), and start planning your content and newsletter topics.

Just having these business assets will help you go a long way. But how to get subscribers?

There are several ways this can be done:

Partner with an influencer

Giveaways

List growth course

III. How to use Email for Business Growth

When you write to your audience, your goal is to build a relationship with them. Share your knowledge, genuinely help them – I’ll even go so far as to tell you to share your “secrets” with them. Really provide value that they can make immediate use of, not a thinly-disguised sales pitch. In whatever way you can help your audience, do it. The stronger your relationship with them, the more they will be glad to hear from you and consider your offers.

And that is of course the next step – offering your product, a trial of your services, or the product or services of someone you know who you have personally vetted. But remember this rule – 80% of your communication with them should be pure, valuable content, and only 20% should be an offer.

With this information, you have the basic why and how strategies for Email Marketing.

The most important thing for you is:

If you don’t have a list, start building one.

If you do have a list, start building a relationship and when your audience trusts you, they will trust that your offers are coming from a place that helps them solve problems.

IV. Your Action Plan

Without knowing your exact situation, if I were to give you a list of generic steps to take next, it would be:

Begin segmenting your list, and use autoresponders for new subscribers so that they will start to be segmented as well.

Do you need more in-depth help with your own Email Marketing?

V. Advanced Strategy: Segmenting your List

If you really want to grow your business through email, you need to separate your audience into “the best and the rest.” Email software has grown more and more sophisticated over the years, and it is incredible how able you are to separate your audiences based on data.

There is a truth called the 80/20 principle, which applies all across business and life. However, when it comes to applying this to Email Marketing, here is one way to think about it: 20% of your list will generate 80% of the sales.

That means you need to find that 20% of people who are the most engaged – those who have really connected with your message, products, services, and offers, and read every email you send, click on your links, watch your videos, etc.

Of this top 20%, you will find again another top 20% of the 20% (4% of your total list), who will do 80% of the 80%. In case that didn’t make sense, I’ll put it another way:

4% of your list will do 64% of your potential email sales.

You need to find that 20%, and then that 4%.

The best way to do this is to segment your list. For example, you could create four basic email lists:

Monthly subscribers

Weekly subscribers

Daily subscribers

Top customers

If someone is very engaged with your content (opening your emails, clicking on your links consistently, purchasing, etc.), you can tell your email software to put them on a special email list for people who get daily updates and/or more offers. On the other hand if someone rarely opens your emails, you can put them on a list who get at most monthly emails, so that they remember you, without you sending them too many emails.

Only paid email services offer these features; and even then only a few of them can do it (Infusionsoft, Aweber + Aweber Pro Tools are two I know of).

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